"Are you all right?"
"So far, both of us," said Moran sourly. "I've just uncovered the crack of an airlock door."
He swept the flame around again. A mass of undercut fungus toppled toward him. He burned it and went on. He swept the flame more widely. There was carbonized matter from the previously burned stuff on the metal, but he cleared all the metal. Carol's voice again;
"There's something flying.... It's huge! It's a wasp! It's—monstrous!"
Moran growled;
"Harper, we're in a sort of trench. If it hovers, you'll burn it as it comes down. Cut through its waist. It won't crawl toward us along the trench. It'd have to back toward us to use its sting."
He burned and burned, white light glaring upon a mass of steam and smoke which curled upward and looked as if lightning-flashes played within it.
Carol's voice;
"It—went on past.... It was as big as a cow!"